Marketers often have no idea why their campaigns work (or not). They try different tactics and draw wild-naive andnaive conclusions.

Today’s article will highlight the fact that advertisements largely work by refreshing and building memory structure.

 

Going back to the Basics of Branding

 1. The Law of Buyer Moderation
 

An often forgotten business rule is,  over time:

– Lightest buyers become heaviest buyers

– Heavy buyers become the light buyers

This rule contradicts the general practice of going after heavy buyers and ignoring light buyers. Marketing’s best chance of success is when it has as much reach as possible. It’s wrong to assume the brand only affects a particular type of buyer.

 

2. Brands need to be distinctive

 Brand need to be distinctive, easily recognizable and distinguishable from others. You can have sub-brands for specific consumers (i.e. Coca-cola zero) but the umbrella brand message should be consistent and memorable. The role of branding and advertising is to bring ‘Public Notice’.

 To encourage brand loyalty a brand must stand out so buyers can easily identify without  conflict. Being distinctive plays the key role here. The stranger the distinctive elements the easier consumers identify brands.

 Think of examples for a second...

• Colours:  Vodafone, coca cola
• Logo:  McDonald
• Tagline: Nike “Just Do It”
  
• Symbol: Mickey Mluse ears
  
• Ad Style: Mastercard ‘Priceless’

The market is a cluttered environment, with great numbers of choices available. Distinctiveness makes life easier for consum 

” All marketing books talk about differentiating. Some how they all have the same context…”

 

3. Advertisement effects purchase probability

 Did you know what 2% of world’s GDP is spent on advertising?

In this cluttered market space consistency is needed for the brand identity to be noticed. It’s important to remember using advertisement increases purchase probability.

It’s also important to note the effects of ads are hard to see sales trends because:

– Few companies spend enough money to increase market share. Most ads are used to prevent a decline in sales.

– Ad effects are spread out thin. Today’s activities results may be seen long periods after.

4. Using the correct advertisement

Advertisement won’t build memory structure if not processed. The main challange isto get passed

5. Use Relevant Images

It is believed that visuals account for 70% of the clicks generated. Make sure your images are of high quality to improve your relevance score. Some element worth considering are:

• Using clear, crisp, high-quality images
• Use a clear Call to Action (CTA)
• Do NOT  exceed 20% tet rule
• Consider using image slideshows or videos

Facebook’s Placement Asset Customization tool lets you tailor creative assets to each of your placements. Make the best use of this tool for improving the user experience.

6. Re-target on Facebook with Impact

Re-targeting is a key element for converting audiences and improving ad engagement on Facebook. However, be cautious about the customer buying cycle. For a luxury product, the conversion cycle may take time, therefor retargeting for a longer period of time will be suitable. For lower-priced products, it makes more sense to re-target for shorter time spans.

Retargeting campaigns tend to generate higher CTR’s than prospecting campaigns. Facebook rewards this with increasing relevance scores.

7. Ensure Ad Content matches audience expectations

Relevance is key. Estimate what stage of the customer journey you are targeting and build content tailored to the needs. As an example follow the below steps:

• For Cold Leads Offer–> Cheat sheets, Tool Kits, Calendars, Podcasts, White Papers, Infographics
• For Warm Leads Offer –> Video content, live demos, tickets, giveaways, coupons, demos
• For Hot Leads Offer –> Trials, demos, purchase messages

8. Create Sexy Ad Copy

Relevant content drives engagement. Sexy content converts. Some points to remember:

Make ad copy about your customer. Speak how you will benefit them (i.e. use the word YOU)

• Find the unique value proposition. Identify what your customer will click
• Use catchy headlines. try variations. Trial free online tools. They even claim odd-numbered headlines drive higher CTR’s.
• Use a clear Call To Action (CTA). Direct the user to action (i.e. Buy now, Sign up, etc.)

9. Watch out for Ad Fatigue.

 Keep a close eye on how many times the audience sees your ad. An ad frequency of 5 is suggested to be maximum for a set period of time. Any higher can trigger negative brand feelings.

10. Trial Different Placements Individually

Compare and contrast how placements work for you. CPC’s and Engagements can vary drastically across platforms. Savvy marketeers build different copy and messaging based on creative opportunities. Explore this for your product.

11. Use Video

Videos are proven to capture higher engagement rates. This will directly improve the Quality Scores of your ads. 

12. Start Establishing a Sales Funnel – Segment your audiences

Separate your audiences based on how they engage with your content. This can involve targeting users who have watched your videos, engaged with a post, clicked through to the website, completed form and so on.

For an education client we setup a basic funnel as below and targeted tailored content for each stage…

Cold Leads –> Segment users who watched 25% of promotional video

Warm Leads –> Target people who have visited the web page and clicked on course fee and subjects pages

Hot Lead –> Target students who have started application and/or enquired

 

13. Engage with your Ad

Facebook sets the ad relevance score after the first 500 impressions. Although not proven to full extent, it’s likely the algorithm will reward you if you drive a positive sentiment score and high CTR from the start of the campaign.  If you can get your team to like and share your content.

To sum it up…

These 13 steps will enable your targeting capabilities and will offer you valuable campaign insights. Keep us posted with the results!